Warning: Girly Post.

Again, I'm banking on the fact that few people read this blog...AND that the people who do actually know my heart pretty well. Because to the casual acquaintance, I will sound like just another silly girl by the last sentence of this post. (Hence the title.)

The short of it: today, my heart simply aches for the man that only God knows I will someday marry. Not for any one good reason, really. I just get anxious sometimes, because I know that being a wife is a witness I haven't had the opportunity to have yet. And today, I long to be her. For him. Now, I am no delusional college kid that believes she must get married right away in order to have any real meaning to her life. I'm no clingy, dependent, gotta-have-a-man-to-feel-complete kind of girl. (Just ask anyone who knows me). And I'm quite certain that I don't even believe in "the one" (I hear gasps but it's true). I just have faith that the Lord knows my heart better than even I do; and that in doing His will, He leads us to the places and people that draw out the characteristics within us that glorify Him the most. I believe that husbands love wives in a way that I haven't felt. And wives love husbands in a way that I haven't been able to pour out yet. BUT I know that when I do have those opportunities that I will love and be loved in a new way. Furiously. Passionately. Simply. And I know that will glorify my Father. I also know that it will open my heart to a new way of loving Christ, and being loved by Him. Silly, I know. But He created marriage to represent His love for us, so I believe that it makes sense to think that until we enter into marriage, we might not understand love as well as those who have. I look forward to that in a real way today.

You see, I long to have someone to come home to. To tell my stories to. To sing to. To listen to. To make plans with. To fall deeper in love with Christ with. To laugh and cry with. To be silly with. To unload my soul's deepest dreams and worries on. To bear burdens with. To dance barefoot in the kitchen with. To let my walls down with. To pour love into.

But greater than this desire is my desire to want what God wants for me. So I will continue to live this incredible life He's blessed me with...Pouring out my energy and heart and soul everyday. Knowing that He will fill me again. He alone will fill me. He alone will satisfy. (Oh, what a tug-of-war this heart feels when it comes to its dreams and His dreams).

I do not know what tomorrow will bring. But I do know the One who does. If it means I spend the rest of my life serving alone, so be it. But if it means that I will someday have someone to call mine, then this blog entry is for him. Beloved, I know not where you are. Who you are. But I'm here waiting. And all the while, living. Please do the same.

Much love,

K

Lake Day!

So yesterday, 30ish of us headed to Smith Lake with nothing but our sleeping bags, bathing suits, and adventure in our hearts. We spent the night at a wonderful family's lakehouse (playing catch-phrase and Phase Ten well into the midnight hour, of course) and woke up this morning with big plans to soak up the sun and catch up on life stories. And boy, did we deliver :) We had such a blast tubing, sea-dooing (yes, of course that's a word), boating, eating, playing, and chatting. Families and singles alike. Today was a perfect picture of what loving and playing hard looks like. I am truly blessed to be utterly surrounded by people who love Jesus and a good time. Can't wait to continue to do life with these joyful servants that I call friends.

Happy Saturday everyone. And goodnight! (This grandma needs a shower and her pillow).

Just one question...

Tonight, I just have one question for you:

Are you living your life from energy drawn from The Spirit or from your own dreams/will?

1 Peter 1:3-7 & 18-21 (The Message)

"What a God we have! And how fortunate we are to have him, this Father of our Master Jesus! Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we've been given a brand-new life and have everything to live for, including a future in heaven—and the future starts now! God is keeping careful watch over us and the future. The Day is coming when you'll have it all—life healed and whole.

I know how great this makes you feel, even though you have to put up with every kind of aggravation in the meantime. Pure gold put in the fire comes out of it proved pure; genuine faith put through this suffering comes out proved genuine. When Jesus wraps this all up, it's your faith, not your gold, that God will have on display as evidence of his victory.

Your life is a journey you must travel with a deep consciousness of God. It cost God plenty to get you out of that dead-end, empty-headed life you grew up in. He paid with Christ's sacred blood, you know. He died like an unblemished, sacrificial lamb. And this was no afterthought. Even though it has only lately—at the end of the ages—become public knowledge, God always knew he was going to do this for you. It's because of this sacrificed Messiah, whom God then raised from the dead and glorified, that you trust God, that you know you have a future in God."

One day left...

I only have one day left in Labor and Delivery.

Merely typing that statement fills my heart with 1,000 emotions. The short of it: I'm excited to move into the new role God has prepared me for, but truly grateful for who I have become within the walls of UAB Labor and Delivery. Caring for my patients alongside the people that I love there has been such a blessing. Most days (if my apt would allow me to miss some rent payments), I would do this job for free. And that's not fluff. I really would. I feel as though few people can say that about the job that they get up to do every morning. But I feel overwhelmingly thankful for the truth in that. And I feel even more grateful that God is/will continue to put me in places where He will be glorified. My time here is drawing to an end, but He will never.

And I'm all out of words now to describe my contentment.

Instead...

I follow an incredible blog (www.kellehampton.com) and amidst her incredible stories and beautiful photography, I found this quote. I do believe it is perfect for a day like today.

I will not die an unlived life. I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire. I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me, to make me less afraid, more accessible, to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise. I choose to risk my significance; to live so that which comes to me as seed goes to the next as blossom and that which comes to me as blossom, goes on as fruit.
-Dawna Markova

One of my favorites...

I was recently reminded of my love for the beauty within Romans 8. Within it lies some almost incomprehensible Truth. About a love that I will spend the rest of my life trying to understand. A love that I will have no trouble spending the rest of my life trying to figure out because of its incomparable greatness. On my best day, I have bathed in the splendor of His love for us and poured it out without effort. On my worst day, I have clung, white-knuckled, to it-- believing that it truly is all I have. And yet, through it all, my little mortal heart has always known that there is nothing that I can do to rid myself of it. Nothing I can do to deserve it or lose it. God's love is bigger than my sin and my decisions. Therefore, it will always be this beautiful, big, overwhelming, sure thing worth sharing... Worth screaming from the rooftops. Whether I am aware of it or not.

Today, I'm aware.

Romans 8:18-39:

"Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later. For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us. We were given this hope when we were saved. (If we already have something, we don’t need to hope for it. But if we look forward to something we don’t yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently.)

And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God’s own will. And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And having called them, he gave them right standing with himself. And having given them right standing, he gave them his glory.

What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else? Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one—for God himself has given us right standing with himself. Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us.

Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? (As the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.”) No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.

And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Safe to say...

So, here lately, I have been trying to make the most of my days off. You know, since I won't have any of those mid-week come June 28th. I've been getting up around 8:30, sipping coffee, spending some time in the Word and with the Lord. Then once I'm awake and geared up for the day, here's what I might do/be doing: go run, go to the pool, run some errands, return phone calls, meet with people I haven't seen in a while, drive, take pictures, cook, etc. It's been incredible, actually. To have that freedom. And I am truly grateful for this life that the Lord has allowed me to live for the past three years. But as I have recently stated, this chapter will be closing soon. And I think it's safe to say that I'm a little scared. I feel confident that maybe ten of my friends actually read this blog, so I'll share my fears here with little worry that I am pouring my heart out to the world.

I fear that I won't know the answers, that I'll be tired more often than not, that I will let my time in clinic pass me by without truly sharing the Lord and His Word with my patients, that I will miss something and a family's life will never be the same, that I will be viewed as a young professional who's not sure what she's doing, that I will struggle to be confident in my new role, that I will come home most days and wish that I was still working 3 days a week in Labor and Delivery, that it might be 10 more years before I know beyond a shadow of a doubt who I am and what I'm doing here.

But, bigger than those fears is my God who has led me to this place. And that's really all I need to know. There are not a lot of words that pass through these lips that will be remembered forever or have stood the test of time, but those, my friend, will.

It's safe to say that I am merely a woman, that I will never have everything figured out, and that I will always struggle to find and exercise the strength and faith it takes to be the woman He is creating me to be. But it is also safe to say that my God is bigger than that. Than me. Than this life we call home for a moment. He is all we need. Incomparably and incomprehensibly so. That's pretty safe to say, my friend.

"We have not stopped praying for you since the first day we heard about you. In fact, we always pray that God will show you everything he wants you to do and that you may have all the wisdom and understanding that his Spirit gives. Then you will live a life that honors the Lord, and you will always please him by doing good deeds. You will come to know God even better.His glorious power will make you patient and strong enough to endure anything, and you will be truly happy. I pray that you will be grateful to God for letting you have part in what he has promised his people in the kingdom of light.

God rescued us from the dark power of Satan and brought us into the kingdom of his dear Son, who forgives our sins and sets us free.

Christ is exactly like God, who cannot be seen. He is the first-born Son, superior to all creation. Everything was created by him, everything in heaven and on earth, everything seen and unseen, including all forces and powers, and all rulers and authorities.

All things were created by God's Son, and everything was made for him. God's Son was before all else, and by him everything is held together. He is the head of his body, which is the church. He is the very beginning, the first to be raised from death, so that he would be above all others. God himself was pleased to live fully in his Son. And God was pleased for him to make peace by sacrificing his blood on the cross, so that all beings in heaven and on earth would be brought back to God."

Colossians 1: 9-20

A New Day.

So, this weekend, my sis graduated college. What an incredible accomplishment! So the past few days have been filled with praise and time with family. Which is always welcome around here...In celebrating, I was filled with memories of that time in my life. When letting go seemed impossible and moving forward seem daunting. Tuscaloosa was the place where I had grown up the most and God had recreated a servant's heart within me. And until this day, I remember that time as being one of the sweetest seasons of my life. Praise God for seasons. For bringing us in and out of sorrow and reintroducing us to joy. But most importantly, for being the same God through it all. There is such sweet peace in knowing that He is exactly who He says He is. He will do what He says He will do. And He is faithful even when we are not. Hallelujah for time passed and for what lies ahead.

Below are some of my favorite still shots from the weekend.

All the ladies with Ambie and her oh-so-lovely nursing uniform...

This was when we realized that this pinning was nothing like we'd practiced...

Me and the graduate :)

Ambie and I with our sweet mom...

Ambie, Holly, and I...

My Memaw and I :) Can you see the resemblance?

She did it!

"I'm gonna sing this song
To let you know that you're not alone
And if you're like me
You need hope, coffee, and melody
So sit back down
Let the world keep spinning ‘round
For yesterday's gone and today is waiting on you to show your face..."

Robbie Seay Band